That’s what I heard from an employee at the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) who was answering a tenant’s questions. The tenant was wondering whether the conditions and fees imposed by his landlord to sign the lease were in compliance with the law.
This sums up today’s housing market quite well. Landlords call the shots. In Montreal, 0.46% of the city’s landlords owned nearly 32% of rental units in 2020. It is this small minority that dictates the terms for housing.
The tenant was also told that he can always refuse the lease and find a better one. But this kind of cliché hides the true balance of power. You can only control what you own.
As capitalism faces a crisis, paying rent is becoming increasingly difficult, while tenants’ rights have been eroded over the years. This is leading more and more tenants to rely on the TAL as a last resort to defend themselves.
Inquiries to the Administrative Housing Tribunal have more than tripled in five years, with excessive rent increases being the main cause.
And even turning to the TAL is not without risk: tenants are sometimes required to have a clean record with the TAL in order to rent. Evictions approved by the TAL have also tripled over the past decade.
As long as these landlords are not expropriated, evictions will continue, and more and more workers will be forced to accept exorbitant rents and submit to the whims of their landlords.
– Alexandre E., Montreal
